Differences In Climate For Undergraduate And Graduate Women In Engineering: The Effect Of Context

When examining the impact of campus climate on the retention of women in STEM fields, it is clearly assumed that women engineering students experience “chilly climates” primarily in the classroom 1,2 . Thus, as students move from the undergraduate to the graduate level where the number of classes is few, it is not unnatural to assume that the climate for women is warmer at the graduate level. However, there is little research to back up this assumption. Quite simply, the contexts in which undergraduates and graduate students experience their educations are quite different, and these different contexts may have important effects on the climate issues faced by undergraduate and graduate women in engineering. This research study conducted at a Pacific Northwest university sought to understand the extent to which assumptions about climate at the undergraduate and graduate level are true. The study found that while undergraduate and graduate women in engineering deal with some of the same climate issues, the contextual differences relative to faculty interactions and classroom experiences were significant in how climate is perceived. The differences in perceptions about climate speak to the fact that a onesize solution does not fit all, and policy changes must account for the contextual differences in the education of female undergraduate and graduate students.